


Heart to Heart

by windsorgirllove



Category: Zero Escape (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:41:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28062600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windsorgirllove/pseuds/windsorgirllove
Summary: Sometime after the events of the Decision Game, Eric and Mira sit down to talk about their feelings.
Relationships: Eric/Mira (Zero Escape)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11
Collections: ZEcret Santa 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! This is my Zecret Santa gift for seen-true-evil! I saw you requested some Eric/Mira, and I've had this idea in my head since I beat the game, so I was happy to finally be able to write it! It kind of got a little long, so have the first half now, and I will put up the second half probably sometime in January. (Though, this first half can kind of stand on its own. I just got to the end and then... kept writing.) Anyway, hope you enjoy!

They were alone in their apartment. Sean was over at Sigma’s getting some upgrade or other. The two of them were in the bedroom. Eric stood very still as Mira traced her finger along his shirt.  


She paused over a seemingly random spot. "Right... here."  


"You sure?"  


"Positive." Mira nodded, mostly to herself. She tapped the spot again with her long nail. "Right here is where your heart is."  


"Wow..." Eric brought his hand up to the spot she had indicated. Mira's hand skittered away when he brought his close, like a nervous spider. He lay his hand flat, palm down on his own chest. "That's incredible."  


“It’s really not.” Mira shrugged, watching him. Her expression was even more unreadable than usual. "It's just anatomy. After a while it just comes down to memorization. But yours is right... there." She took his wrist and moved his hand to the left, slightly, and shifted it up. "Exactly there."  


Eric looked down at himself. If he concentrated, he could almost feel his heart beating underneath his skin. "Huh."  


They were both silent for a moment. Then Eric asked, quietly, "What... what do you remember?"  


Mira raised an eyebrow. "What do you remember?" she asked him back.  


Too much. Eric had been trying to sort through his memories since the desert, and every time he thought about it too much his head started hurting and he got dizzy. But a few things stood out.  


"I... I think I died?" he said. "A few times."  


"Any one in particular?" she asked, leaning against the dresser and crossing her arms. Eric sat down on the edge of the bed, hard, and folded his hands in front of him. Both of them were far too calm for the situation, in Eric's opinion. Discussing how you died wasn’t something calm, rational people do. He would gladly volunteer to be the person freaking out, except somehow he couldn’t. It was like someone had simply switched off the part of him that panicked. It would be nice if it weren’t so worrisome.  


"Umm... in the library," he said, to answer her question. "The standoff. The kid shot me... no, wait, they tried to shoot you. And I jumped in front of you."  


Mira nodded. "Both," she said. "At different times."  


"How do you keep track of all of them?" he asked. “The timelines, I mean. For me it's all... jumbled. I can barely keep track of our one timeline that led to here. It's so complicated."  


"It is," she agreed. "Believe me, I'm not having an easier time at all. That one just... stands out more to me."  


"Oh." The pod room. Mira's body. The nail marks. Out of all the timelines, that was the one that stood out the most to him. He could almost feel the too familiar icy grip of a panic attack coming over him even now, as he thought about it.  


"This is weird, right?" he asked. "Like, this is such a weird thing to talk about."  


"Don't ask me." Mira cracked a smile. "I don't think I have a very good grasp on what could be considered normal."  


"Don't say that. You're normal."  


Mira laughed softly. "You still haven't remembered everything, have you?"  


Eric was silent. He moved his hand from his chest to the back of his neck, rubbing slightly. At his throat his heartbeat was much more prominent, easier to find. Harder to ignore. "What about the library? You said that it stood out to you."  


She nodded, slowly. "It did."  


"Why?"  


"The second one. Where you protected me. You didn't need to."  


"I wanted to," he said, with complete conviction. He didn't actually remember how it went down, but he was certain of that. "You're my girlfriend, after all. Of course I would."  


"I didn't for you."  


"Well, it happened so fast. No one could expect you to react in time. Hell, I don't know how I managed to react for you."  


"Hm." Mira tilted her head and examined him, her eyes narrowed. "Do you remember the Heart Ripper?"  


"The serial killer?" They did talk about that at some point, didn't they. With Sean, in the rec room. He couldn't remember why it had come up, but he did remember Sean having some impressive facts that he just threw out at them. Which, knowing what he knew now, made sense. "What about him?"  


"Her."  


“Hmm?”  


"I'm the Heart Ripper," she said, casually and calm as you please.  


"...Oh." It should surprise him more. It should terrify him, make him want to run screaming from the room. But it didn't. He already knew it, after all. At least, technically speaking. "Why?"  


"Why?" She laughed. "That's not the question I usually get."  


"Have you told a lot of people that you are the Heart Ripper?"  


"No, not many." She pushed off the dresser, taking two winding steps forward and cradling her arms against her stomach. "Why? That's kind of a long story. I should finish the first one first."  


"The first one?"  


"The library." She stopped in front of him, staring down at him with her arms crossed. "You didn't die immediately when Sean shot you. You could have survived, if we had given you immediate medical attention."  


"Oh," Eric said. "But I did die. I'm sure of it."  


"Yes. I shot you."  


"Oh." He felt something turn in his stomach, and did his best to push it back down. "Well, it was a quick death, then, that way. Less agony."  


"That's not why I did it."  


"I know, you wanted to get out. I don't blame you. I mean, do you remember how insistent I was about leaving? It must have been a tough choice."  


"That's not why either." Mira tilted her head, her hair falling ever so slightly in front of her eyes. "I wanted to kill you. Ever since we first met."  


"Oh." This supernatural calm could only hold back so much of his nature. Eric began to panic. He stood suddenly, forcing Mira to take a step back. "Why? W-what did I do? Did I hurt you? I mean, I don't think I messed up our first meeting that bad-"  


"No, you didn't. You did nothing wrong." She tried to step back towards him, but Eirc scrambled over the edge of the bed to get away from her. Mira stopped, her hand hanging in midair as though she wanted to comfort him. Her voice didn't sound particularly comforting, however. It was the same cool, almost monotone voice that she always had. "Have you ever heard the phrase about touching someone's heart?"  


"Um?"  


"It was something my mom told me. About when you touch someone's heart, then you can understand them. Then you can feel." She let her hand fall to her own chest, over her own heart. "I don't feel. I never have. That's why I kill. That's why I take out the hearts. To touch them. To feel what they felt."  


"Mira, I..." Eric laughed, surprising himself. It was just on the edge of bitterness. "That's not how it works. I mean, that's just a saying. The heart isn't actually where we feel things. It's just a muscle. We feel things in the brain, through, um, chemicals, I think."  


"Really?" Mira sounded genuinely surprised. "It's always worked for me, though. I feel... something when I hold their hearts. Something different from what I always feel. Different from each other, too. Maybe it was the remnants of their spirits, still giving off their final thoughts?"  


"Come on, you don't really believe that stuff, do you?"  


Mira tilted her head. "Don't you?"  


"I mean, I was raised that way, I guess, but I don't actually know about souls or any of that spiritual stuff."  


"I don't think it's any stranger than some of the stuff that we experienced at DCOM."  


She had him there. "Well, that isn't the most important part, I guess. I mean, were you just... waiting to kill me? Ever since we met?"  


"It wasn't like I was waiting with a knife behind my back for you to turn around since day one. Murders take time to plan. There's a reason I haven't been caught, you know. Besides, I never try to go for a kill the moment I meet someone. I want to wait and see, you know? In case the last one was the one that flipped the switch and turned my feelings on." Her face changed, her expression adding just a hint of sadness to it. "It never does, though. No matter how many feelings I collect, it doesn't change me. I can't add them to myself."  


There were a lot of questions racing through Eric's head at the moment. He chose the one that was least likely to give him emotional damage. "Why did you agree to come to DCOM with me?"  


"Because I was bored. I think I told you as much the first time you asked me."  


"Oh, right." He had expected her to say no when he first brought it up. It was a strange whim to begin with. Eric wasn't exactly sure why he had wanted to do it himself. It was just... something to be a part of. Something bigger than himself. If the next step on the mission was to actually go to Mars, well, then, his name would be in history books, as one of the first test subjects in the initial experiment. It was just... something that mattered. For once in his life he wanted to do something that mattered.  


"And I mean, it was interesting," Mira continued. "Whatever else you could say about the experience, it wasn't boring."  


"No, trauma is a lot of things, but it isn't boring," Eric said, a bit sarcastically. Mira didn't seem to notice. Eric sighed, rubbing his face. "Why are you telling me this, anyway? Why confess now?"  


"Because I didn't want to lie to you?" Mira asked. "No, that's not true. It's more that I wanted to tell you something, and you need to have that context to understand what I'm trying to say."  


"What is it?"  


"I'm getting to it." She took another step closer, and sank down to sit on the bed. Eirc stayed pressed up against the far wall. Mira counted out her points on her fingers. "Alright. You died. I killed you. Shot you in the head. And it wasn't to get out. It wasn't to give you a quick death. It was an opportunity - finally, a perfect opportunity to touch your heart." She curled her hand up into a fist, running the fingers of the opposite hand over her knuckles. "It's easier than you think to get through the body. Once there's no resistance it's like digging through a melon. I usually use a knife, at least to get to the heart, but once you were dead I just dug in with my bare hands."  


"Damn.” Eric swallowed, his heart hammering. Apparently it had heard all of this talk about itself, and wanted to make itself known. “You did this all in front of Sean?"  


"Yeah. I mean, I don't usually do it in front of people, but that's only because usually people would send me to jail if they saw me digging into a body. I knew that Sean couldn't do anything about it, so I didn't mind."  


"But still, he's a kid... that's not something you should do in front of a kid."  


"Is he a kid?" Mira tilted her head. "You didn't seem to think so in the game."  


"Well, I wasn't in the best state of mind in the game," Eric admitted. "I know better now."  


"Either way, I don't think Sean minded. He didn't try to stop me, at least." She smiled, more to herself than to him. "It was the best one. You know that? Every heart that I've held, most of them are filled with fear, or with anger. Bad thoughts. Not you. You only had..." She stopped, thinking for a bit. "You really loved me, didn't you," she said softly.  


"Yes," Eric said. "I do."  


"I didn't really understand why," she continued. "I mean, of course I didn't. I don't know why anyone would love anyone. I don't think I gave you any reason to. But even when I killed you, you held no grudge. It makes no sense. Why are you like this?"  


"Why am I... like this?" It was a strange question to Eric. "I mean, I guess I just am. Is it weird to care about someone?"  


"When it's like this, yes. I've killed a lot of people. A lot of boyfriends. A few girlfriends, too. You're the only one who loved me at the end." She smiled again, worrying her thumb over her knuckles. "It felt nice. It felt so, so nice. I think... I think I felt... happy."  


"Oh. Well, that's good. I'm glad."  


She raised an eyebrow. "You're glad? I killed you. I don't think that you should be this happy about it."  


"I wouldn't say that I'm happy about it, but... well, either way, I'm not dead now. I'm alive. That's what matters, I think."  


"You're alive," Mira repeated to herself, her voice sounding dreamy and distant.  


Eric slowly approached her, his hand held up in case of any sudden movements. "Um, was that what you wanted to tell me, or...?"  


"Oh, you wanted more?" Mira asked playfully. "Should I tell you about the other time I killed you?"  


"The other time?"  


"No, I guess that wasn't everything," Mira said, before he could ask anything else. "But it's... it's what you said before. You're alive. I've touched your heart, and you're still alive. That's never happened before." She swallowed. Eric got the impression that she was nervous. It wasn't something that most people would be able to notice, but Eric had spent a lot of time watching Mira's face. He was starting to pick up on her cues. "I mean, you are the only person who's heart I've touched who is still walking around, who I can talk to after the fact. It means that... you're the only person who I can really, truly understand."  


"Oh," Eric said weakly. "Neat."  


"Neat?" She raised an eyebrow. "Is that it?"  


"I'm sorry, I guess I just... don't really know what that means."  


"It means that you are the only person who I can love."  


"...Oh." Eric's breath caught in his throat. He rushed over to her side. "You mean it? You love me?"  


"I said that I have the possibility of loving you now," Mira corrected. "But, yes. I guess I do."  


"Really?" Eric could feel a genuine grin spreading across his face, almost without his control.  


"You shouldn't be so excited," Mira said. "But yes. That's what I wanted to tell you. So..." She stood, taking a few steps away from him and the bed. Eric frowned, confused. "I don't know what you want to do now," she continued. "I don't even know what I want to do now. But if you want to leave I don't blame you."  


"Leave? Why would I want to leave? Mira, wait." Eric scrambled after her. "Are you breaking up with me?"  


Mira paused, half turned away. "I don't think that's my call to make," she said. She turned back to him and leaned against the wall, crossing her arms. Her body language was defensive, even though her voice was still even. Now Eric felt like he was the one who had to approach her carefully, like a frightened animal, one who was liable to bite.  


"What do you mean?"  


"I'm the one who has done things wrong," she said. "I think murder probably ranks above, like, cheating when it comes to relationship do's and don'ts. I've told you everything, and now you have a choice to make. Either leave, break up with me, and walk away - and I don't blame you if you do. Or, you could stay, I guess. I won't stop you either way."  


"Well, I want to stay, then," Eric said immediately. "That's the one that I choose."  


"Why?" She cocked her head. "That doesn't make sense."  


"Does love make sense?"  


"No. I just told you."  


"No, I-” He sighed. “Not just to you, I mean-"  


"I mean, this doesn't really follow the rules of a relationship, as far as I understand them."  


“Maybe not, but Mira- it’s fine.” He approached her slowly, reaching a hand out. She didn't move, either towards him or away. She just allowed him to come. He reached down and took her hand. "For the rules of a relationship, I think... maybe relationships don’t need to have rules. Maybe we can just take it slowly, day by day."  


"But I killed you."  


"You're so hung up on that."  


"I think you should be a little more hung up on it," Mira said. "I mean, you need a serial killer to tell you that you shouldn't be with someone who wants to kill you."  


"Well, do you still want to kill me?"  


Mira shook her head. "There wouldn't really be much of a point anymore."  


"So, yeah. I'm not in danger."  


"I might kill other people, though," she said. "Maybe people you know. People you care about."  


"You won't," Eric said quietly. "You can't. There's no one left. No one but you who I care about."  


"That's pretty sad," Mira said.  


"Yeah, well. You’ve killed people before. Do you feel sorry about it?"  


Mira shook her head. "That's the thing. I'm not. I would do it again. It's been the only thing that has worked, to let me look into what it might be like to be an actual functional human being. Do you know what that's like?"  


"To be an actual functioning human being?" Truth be told, Eric didn't, not really. More and more his coping mechanisms had been failing him, letting in more of the cold, the fear, the emptiness. Deep and dark, like the depths of the lake. He didn't know how much longer he would last on his own. He didn't want to be alone anymore.  


"I should feel sorry, shouldn't I?" Mira asked. "If I was really feeling things, then remorse should be one of them, right? What if all of this was just me deluding myself, and I actually didn't steal feelings from the dying hearts of my dead boyfriends."  


"Ha," Eric laughed, softly, but Mira looked serious, as though this was a legitimate concern. He shook his head. "Well, I don't think that you would ever have felt things the same as most people, even if you did go about it a different way. As far as I've seen, every person feels things a different way. I don't know, I'm not really an expert on these kinds of things. So I don't really know if you should feel sorry, or if you should feel anything, really. As long as you are happy."  


"Hmm," Mira hummed. She considered him. Eric was close enough to touch her now, but he didn’t. "I don't know if I'm happy. I simply am. But I don't want to change. I think, if I had to choose, I would still choose the road that led me to here. Or rather, I don't know who I would be if I wasn't who I was right now. What if I was worse? What if I was just a complete monster, with no remorse?"  


"I thought you said that you weren't sorry?"  


“I'm not. But... I don't know. I can't say I didn't enjoy it, because I did, but I wouldn't have done it if I didn't have to. There was a reward in it for me. Without that, there would be no reason for it. Right? I wouldn't have killed if there wasn't a reason for it?"  


"I don't know, Mira," Eric said honestly. "Only you can know that."  


Mira frowned, and looked down. Eric hesitated, and then slowly reached out and took her hand. Mira let him. "Hey. Okay. So, you've killed people in the past. Fine. Do you still want to kill people now?"  


Eric watched her take a deep breath, and then let it out with a sigh. "No," she said quietly. "I don't think I do. I mean, I can remember what it felt like, now. It fucking hurt.”  


"Okay, so. There you go." Eric smiled gently. "No more murders. That's really all that we can ask of you, I think.”  


"Excuse me for asking, but are you really okay with this?" Mira asked, raising an eyebrow. "Dating a murderer? Murder, in general? You should probably be calling the cops right about now. You aren't reacting normally to this at all."  


"No, I... I don't think I react normally to most things, if I'm being honest." Eric scratched the back of his head. "Like I said, emotions are difficult for everyone. Mine are... mine are weird."  


"...I don't think they're weird," Mira said.  


Eric smiled. "Thank you." Their hands hung down between them, intertwined. They could try for more. But for right now, this was enough.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eric and Mira talk about that other thing that's hanging over their relationship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I said I was going to finish it in January and I did! I just hoped it would be sooner... Anyway, he's the second half!

"So, you were the Heart Ripper?" Eric asked, some time later.  


Mira nodded, swallowing the gulp she had just taken from her mug. It was early morning, breakfast time. Eric didn’t look like he got much sleep. "That's right.”  


"So then, all of the murders attributed to the Heart Ripper, all of them, were they all you?"  


"Yeah. Well..." she paused to think. "There was one in Milwaukee that I didn't do, but everyone said I did. Other than that, yep, pretty much."  


Eric was silent for a moment. "My, um, my mother... she was the first victim of the Heart Ripper. They say. But that’s impossible, right? I mean, I was like, ten. You must have been the same age then too. So there's no way that you could have killed her... right?"  


Mira was silent for a minute, a very long, slow, terrifying minute. Then she let out a breath. "You aren't going to like this," she said.  


"God," Eric said, halfway under his breath. He stood up from the table and took a few steps away, turning his back to her and running his fingers through his hair.  


"Does it make it better if I say I’m sorry?" Mira asked.  


Eric glanced at her and laughed, a little darkly. "Are you though?"  


"Well, I am now. I wasn't then." She shrugged. "I didn't know you when I was ten."  


"Would you not have killed my mom if you knew me?"  


“Of course not. If I killed someone tangentially related to me, it would be too easy to trace it back to me." Mira blinked at him. He couldn't tell if she was kidding or not.  


"... is that it?" Eric asked.  


"Well, I guess I wouldn't like it if someone killed my mother,” Mira said. I guess you didn't like it much either."  


"That's an understatement," Eric spat. He started pacing around the kitchen. "I don't think you understand. I mean, did you even love your mother?" Immediately he shrank back. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."  


"No, it's a fair question," Mira said evenly. "I don't know if I did, really. Not the way you did. But she did give me food and shelter for most of my life. That’s not nothing.” She paused. “And at least she tried to help me. With the heart thing. At least she tried to understand. That's more than most people tried to do." She paused again, thoughtful for a moment. "You know, I always try to understand other people, their emotions, all of it. No one ever tries to understand me."  


Eric nodded, slowly at first. "I... understand how you feel. Sometimes it feels like no one actually cares about what I think, or how I feel. But, I think that's a lot more common than we think. I think understanding other people is something that we take for granted. We think that everyone is experiencing the world the way that we do. And that's true, for most people. It's just that when you aren't the same, when you don't see the world exactly the same, that you notice it. And you realize that you are different. That you are broken. And no one else was ever going to understand you, or even try to."  


"Jesus, dude," Mira said, mostly with some humor but also with the barest hint of sympathy. "Losing your mom really messed you up, didn't it? Sorry about that."  


"Are you, really?"  


“Well, I’m not happy about it, at least. I already have emotional problems, I’m not trying to cause them in other people."  


Eric laughed, though it was strained. "How thoughtful," he said.  


"Thank you," she said sincerely, either not detecting his sarcasm or ignoring it.  


"Well, I guess the point I was trying to make, was that when you realize that you are different, now you get to choose to understand. Now you can try to be the person who understands when no one else does. And that's tough, I know it is. But you have to do it. You just have to keep smiling, and keep moving on."  


Mira blinked at him owlishly for a moment, and then looked down at her hands. She seemed to be thinking about something. "It's funny. When I first held your heart, I thought it felt familiar. And what you said, about smiling... it was the same thing that my first kill had said, and how she felt. I should have put it together then, that the two of you were related."  


Eric sniffled, trying to keep back the tears that had been building in his throat for the past couple of minutes. He didn't want to know. He didn't want to know, but he had to ask. "What... was it like?"  


"When she died?"  


Eric nodded.  


Mira took a deep breath, looking up at the ceiling. "Hmm. Where do you want me to start?"  


"Why did you choose her?"  


"There wasn't any real reason," she said. "I had been waiting in the woods by my street all night. I was waiting for someone to come by, but I didn't really have a plan. No one passed by, and then just around dawn, she came jogging down the street. She was just the first person I saw. She didn't see me coming. I knocked her down and pulled her into the forest before she could even react. Then I stabbed her with a knife I stole from the kitchen. It was as simple as that. It took a little bit for her to die, though. That was something I improved on. You don't want people to die slowly, it's messier and it's more likely for them to leave evidence behind. And if they die slowly, they might thrash around and injure themselves, which can mess up their organs. That's another thing - a shot through the heart is quick and efficient, but will destroy the heart, and then what's the point? You want to kill them quickly and quietly, without destroying the heart. That eliminates a lot more methods than you would think. You could always knock them out, which can be easier than going straight to the kill. I experimented with sedation back in the day, taking the heart out while they're still alive. It's certainly an interesting experience, but ultimately it just muddled the emotions. They would just keep screaming for their lives, begging, pleading, and I would only get fear, one after the other after the other. No variety. It got boring after a while."  


"Um..." Eric was going a bit green. He was starting to feel sick. "Could you get back to the subject, please?"  


"Right. Well, she didn't do any of that. She fought back at first, of course, but once I had stabbed her she went limp. She just looked at me, kindly, and she told me that I needed to keep smiling. I mean, it’s not like people haven’t told me that before. But when she said it, I don't know, it was different. It was like... she could tell I was different, and that I was hurting, and she was just acknowledging it, and letting me know that I just needed to keep moving forwards. That I was on the right path, and it was all going to be okay in the end. And I just felt... good. I felt loved. She didn't even know me, and she loved me. I haven't felt that again, not until you. It was nice."  


Eric smiled, a bit sadly. "Yeah, that sounds like my mom."  


"She seemed like a lovely woman," Mira said. "If it makes you feel better, you really remind me of her.”  


Eric actually did start crying at that, all be it silently. His voice was thick when he spoke. "That... actually means a lot to me. Thank you." He wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand, and laughed. “It’s better than reminding you of my father, at least.”  


“How come?”  


"It's... complicated. I loved him, of course I loved him, he was my dad. But... he was never the same after my mom died. And after..." he trailed off.  


"After?"  


Eric's throat closed up as he even approached the topic. He shook his head. "No, sorry. It's... things went bad, after that. Really bad. I haven't seen him since I moved out."  


"Is he still alive?"  


"No, he died last spring. Why?"  


"No reason."  


"Mira." Eric fixed her with a stern look. "Were you going to go kill my dad for me?"  


“So? I’ve gotten really good at it, might as well use it for something.”  


"You don't even know what he did."  


"So he did do something."  


"I..." Eric sighed, rubbing his eyes. He suddenly felt a headache forming at the back of his mind. "I know that I've kind of made you confess all of the secrets in your life-"  


"You couldn't make me do anything. I'm the one who started confessing. I wanted to tell you."  


"And I want to tell you too, I just... I can't, yet. It's like something is stopping me." He shook his head, sighing again. "I'm sorry. It's just... it's hard."  


"It's fine, dude. I didn't ask."  


Eric cringed. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-"  


"Eric," Mira said sternly. "Stop it. You didn't ask me about my serial killer past. I wanted to tell you. And if you don't want to tell me something, then you don't have to. It doesn't matter to me either way."  


Eric laughed, though it sounded kind of strained. "Is it weird that your indifference is kind of comforting to me?"  


"I don't know," Mira said. "Everything's strange to me. You should really stop asking me about these kind of things."  


"I guess I should." He smiled, bracing his hands on the kitchen table and ducking his head, embarrassed. "This is definitely the weirdest relationship I've ever been in."  


"Me too. Different reasons, though."  


"I'm sure." He chuckled a little bit, and looked up at her. "You know what? I don't mind it, though. Not one bit."  


"No?" she asked. "That's good, I guess."  


"What about you?" Eric asked. "How do you feel-"  


"I don't."  


"-about, okay." Eric struggled not to laugh. "Was that a joke? You’re not going to get away with that for much longer, you know.”  


"Oh, I think I'll get away with it plenty of more times," Mira said, a sparkle in her eyes.  


"Okay, but how do you feel about this? You keep asking me if I'm okay with going on with this relationship, but how about you? You're part of this relationship too. I know I want to carry on, but if you don't want to, then I don't want to force you."  


"What do you mean?" Mira asked, cocking her head. "Why should it matter? I'm the one who did wrong by you."  


"Yes, and I decided that I still wanted to be here. So I guess what I'm asking you, Mira, is... would you like to go out with me?"  


"Of course," Mira said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Why wouldn't I? I'm still here, aren't I?"  


"Yeah," Eric said, smiling. He reached across the table and took her hand in his. "You are."


End file.
